Dangerous Playthings
by pyrexprodigy
Summary: Fourteen children of various ages, pitted against each other in a virtual reality. Of course, with teenagers, you never really know what's going to happen. Lenku; requested by Awesome DT :3
1. Chapter 1

**The lovely Awesome D.T. requested this story some time ago. This first chapter is subject to change because I'm having trouble building the world, but here's something!**

* * *

"You got it?"

Len gave his friend a teasing grin. It was one that said 'well, maybe I'll tell you. Then again, maybe I won't.' Rei, the friend in question, was used to this kind of thing from Len, who honestly couldn't have a less interesting life.

"Hmmmmmmaybe," Len said.

"Len," Rei prompted.

Len shrugged in a innocent way before throwing his backpack over his shoulder, jacket in on arm. It had been cold that morning, but now that it was almost three in the afternoon, he could make do without a jacket, even in December.

"Maybe," Len repeated.

"That usually means yes with you," Rei replied. "Thank you very much for your input."

"You didn't even have to ask to know," Len told him with a note of accusation in his voice. Rei shrugged in a way that tells him this is exactly the case, but his raven-haired friend won't admit anything.

"Have you had a chance to try it out?" he asked.

"Nah, man. I just got the text about the game arriving like, five minutes ago." They were leaving the main school hall now, thumping down the stairwell to the ground floor, where they would part ways. People around them bustled past, upperclassmen and underclassmen and teachers and teacher's aids. Len recognized a few of them, but made no effort to trade daily goodbyes.

"So I take it you'll be up playing until three in the morning," Rei said as if there was any question about it.

Len shrugged again, not completely admitting to that. "Probably," he replied. "But you can't blame me."

"I'm not driving you to school tomorrow if you sleep in," was the only warning Rei gives him as the part ways. "See ya, Len."

"Bye," Len told him pleasantly. He rubbed a warm hand against the goosebumps on his arm, the chill of the winter air causing his hair to stand on end. It was only a moment later that his mom pulled up to the front of the school, ushering himself and his twin into the car.

Len was too pumped to pretend to be paying attention to her or his sister. The moment they got home, he locked himself away in his room, game in his computer and ready to boot. It shouldn't take too long to download. After that, he'd have hours to play this. This, the best game of the year. The ratings were good, the betas loved it, and the online reviews… Len just couldn't believe this day was actually here.

He had been waiting for Avanna's Forge for the past two years. After a few missteps in the creation and a few trailers and demos that had honest-to-god made his heart pound, it was finally here. His career as a gamer would never be the same.

Okay, so maybe his inner dialogue was a bit over the top, but he was excited. People just didn't understand.

As the game downloaded, he leaned back in his desk chair, feet propped up on the surface. He did his best to avoid knocking into the soda can he had set next to his desktop. He could feel the excitement and adrenaline rushing through him, and whether it's ridiculous or not he enjoyed the feeling. Len was in his element. Len was going to destroy this game.

With a crack of his knuckles, he leaned in to finish setting the game up.

* * *

_Welcome, __Len K.!_ _This is where you will set up your profile! Please name your character!_

_Name accepted! Welcome, __Leon Starbrooke! _

_Please select a class: _

_Warrior_

_Mage_

_Rogue_

_Medic_

_**IMPORTANT**__: hover each class in order to see details._

\/

_Warriors_ _specialize in direct confrontation and weapons skills. By choosing the warrior class, you will have a bonus for strength and agility. From the warrior class, subclasses such as __paladin__, __knight__, __brute__, and __prince_ _may be unlocked._

\/

_Mages_ _specialize in magical ability. By choosing the mage class, you will have a bonus for magic and intelligence. From the mage class, subclasses such as __witch__, __warlock__, and __sorcerer_ _may be unlocked._

\/

_Rogues_ _specialize in team support, stealth, and thievery. By choosing the the rogue class, you will have a bonus for agility, intelligence, and stealth. From the rogue class, subclasses such as __thief__, __assassin__, and __scout_ _may be unlocked._

\/

_Medics_ _specialize in healing and team support. By choosing the medic class, you will have a bonus for intelligence and health. From the medic class, subclasses such as __sylph__, __shaman__, and __maid__._

\/

_You have chosen the __warrior_ _class! Your stats are as follows:_

_Strength - 6_

_Stamina - 3_

_Intelligence - 3_

_Agility - 6_

_Magic - N/A_

_Stealth - 3_

_Health - 30/30_

_Level - 1_

_Welcome to Avanna's Forge, Leon Starbrooke! To start exploring, please click on your map!_

* * *

Len yawned, checking the clock in the corner of his computer screen. It was about four in the morning, with school coming up far sooner than he would like. Looking at the game screen again, he scanned his new decked out level 7 knight. Two levels ago, he'd gotten together the funds for proper armor. Next, he'd have to focus on weapons. His sword was shit.

With a sigh and a quick blink of two of tired, dry eyes, Len turned the monitor of his computer off, stretching his tired limbs and stumbling off to bed. Despite his current state of complete exhaustion, he was still excited. Even after hours of playing, he couldn't believe how great the game was. Granted, graphics could be better, but the lore and gameplay was nice.

He remembered rubbing his aching temples just before he fell asleep.

* * *

"So how was your night of League of Legends, brother dearest?"

It was Rin, with her cocky half-smirk and an orange in one hand. Len groaned as he sluggishly poured out a bowl of cereal for himself, feeling the effects of the late night on his body.

"It wasn't League of Legends," he muttered. He knew full well she didn't care and wouldn't listen, so why he bothered with a response at all was beyond him.

As expected, Rin didn't even react, choosing instead to focus her limited attention on her own breakfast. It was a mess of protein and calories that Len marvelled at every single day.

Rin was his opposite in many ways. While he chose to sit in his room and sulk in his anti-social tendencies, Rin forced herself into social situation and thrived in sports. She was a star soccer player at the school and only hung with people like her. That was to say, people with fewer brain cells than scores on the field.

Len knew this wasn't an entirely fair thing to say, but his inner bitter child couldn't help but think about the entire situation this way. The reality was that Rin was the golden child. She got the good grades, she shone on the stage and on the field, and she did what their parents wanted. It was frustrating that, while she offered the normal older sibling teases sometimes, she never shoved her prowess in his face. In fact, when it was brought up, she went surprisingly quiet considering how much she usually talked. So maybe Len understood how she felt about it. That didn't mean he couldn't still be a bit jealous and childish about it

Still, he missed being closer to her. He missed being similar to her. But he certainly wasn't going to try out for some sports team just to get along with his twin. The effort behind that… Ugh, no thanks.

Len hurried through his breakfast before rushing off to school, much more pleasant thoughts of Avanna's Forge in his head.

* * *

_Leon Starbrooke, your stats are as follows:_

_Strength - 27_

_Stamina - 21_

_Intelligence - 18_

_Agility - 25_

_Magic - N/A_

_Stealth - 10_

_Health - 61/75_

_Level - 7_

* * *

**Review if that's your thing. If not, see you around!**


	2. Chapter 2

_Leon Starbrooke, your stats are as follows:_

_Strength - 43_

_Stamina - 36_

_Intelligence - 34_

_Agility - 50_

_Magic - N/A_

_Stealth - 19_

_Health - 190/200_

_Level - 23_

* * *

The game quickly overtook his life.

After school, he sat down, logged in, and played until his father called him down for dinner. Sometimes, he broke away long enough to take a crack at his homework and ultimately decide it wasn't worth it. It was beginning to become a problem that he didn't entirely see a problem with. He frequented online forums, met the top players online, and sunk so fully into the world it was sometimes unnerving to enter reality again.

So it wasn't immediately perceived as wrong when he opened his eyes one morning to find himself in an uncomfortable bed. Looking around, it took very little time (less time than he was willing to admit) for Len to realize where he was. The landscape painting above his head was easy to place; the sounds of carts and calls outside even easier. Within a moment, he realized where he was.

"Oh," was the first unintelligent sound from his mouth.

Throwing his rough blankets aside, Len examined his hands. They were rough with callouses and scarred. But they were his hands. His size, with all the same freckles and birthmarks. With those hands, he ran his fingers over his face, feeling his nose and cheeks and the hair on his head. He froze when he reached his hair.

It's his hair. It's blonde, but it's altogether too long. At the back of his head, a ponytail sat, and a braid of grass and hair loops around to the back of his head where that ponytail was held. The way his dirty nails caught in his hair was unfamiliar and just so wrong in its own way. What was this?

With a sigh, Len decided this must be one of those weird dreams. The ones where you can control them. That would make sense, since he could move his own body and he could feel and hear and everything else. But he had a sword at his belt. He could hear horses outside. This was not his world.

He was dreaming about Avanna's Forge.

The prospect excited him. He was there, in a fantastical land of myth and magic. He was _there._ He could do anything in this land. Hell, he could romance that amazing NPC down in the Crypt marketplace.

The feeling of the sword handle in his hand caused his heart to race. Every nerd's dream. While this did happen to be a literal dream, this was a close to being in the game as he could get.

Len was the luckiest person in the world.

* * *

_Mau Minks, your stats are as follows:_

_Strength - 39_

_Stamina - 30_

_Intelligence - 38_

_Agility - 41_

_Magic - N/A_

_Stealth - 17_

_Health - 180/180_

_Level - 21_

* * *

That's what she woke up to. Her stat display, with her EXP in the corner. She could tell she was close to leveling up. She could also tell something was very, very wrong.

Fae sword in hand, she stood up. She was in the middle of her campsite, where her character Mau had been left the night before. And there were the twins, Aqua and Amber, sleeping on the floor of the forest like nothing was happening. Something was happening. She could feel it. She could feel the sword in her hand, the weight of it that drew her closer to the ground. She could feel an unfamiliar strength surge through her and felt rough skin beneath her elf-made gloves. Elf-made, because this was Avanna's forge and none of this was real.

She was a casual, she knew. She was levels behind everyone she met on here. None-the-less, she could hold her own in duels and helped when she was in a party. But this was way out of her depth in so many ways.

Looking back on it, she finally snapped when she felt the cat ears on her character's head twitch. Reaching up with one hand and leaving the other on her sword, she stroked the furry ears with a delicate finger. Except it wasn't delicate. It was dry and scarred and calloused, just like every other inch of her skin. Just what the hell was going on.

It's then that Amber turns over in her shared sleeping bag, blinking in the sunlight. She stretches, yawns, and just about collapses again when she sees Mau staring at her. Amber is on her feet in moments, hardly disturbing her twin in the process. Amber chose the path of the mage, and Mau can see it in the way she holds herself. Her hands sparked with golden magic, more than ready to fight her partymate.

Mau raised her hands in a form of surrender. "I don't know how we're here, either," she said quickly. "I just woke up, same as you."

Amber, who Mau has noticed is far more hot-headed than her twin, hesitates before relaxing back into a casual stance. Mau made the effort to slide her sword back into her belt.

"What's going on?" Aqua asked from behind Amber, having finally woken up. The short-haired twin looked up at them, yawning and showing off her teeth, which were inlaid with gems of all sorts. The only thing they had in common is the color blue.

"We're in Avanna's forge," Amber told the girl. Aqua blinked like a startled bird and stretched.

"Huh."

"Huh?" Mau demanded. "What the hell do you mean by 'huh?'"

"Don't snap at her!" Amber retorted back, not delaying for a second. Aqua doesn't seem bothered.

"I thought it was a dream at first. But everything is so detailed. I can even bring up my stats," Aqua said, raising her finger as if to push an invisible button. And up popped her stats, displaying her class and level for all to see on a translucent screen about the size of a laptop.

_Aqua Morganite, your stats are as follows:_

_Strength - 31_

_Stamina - 31_

_Intelligence - 42_

_Agility - 42_

_Magic - 51_

_Stealth - 10_

_Health - 220/260_

_Level - 26_

Amber slapped her sister's hand away and the screen vanished. "Don't show her that," she said pointedly with a sideways look at Mau. Aqua shrugged.

"Well, we're in a party together and we're stuck in a game, so I don't see how hiding anything will help."

"Disband the party, then!"

"Rosalind hasn't woken up. Ask her then."

Mau crossed her arms and glared across the open space at Amber. "Sorry my company isn't wanted, but I'm trapped here same as you," she paused before adding. "And for the record, I had nothing to do with this."

Before Amber could shoot something rude her way, Aqua smiles. "I had a feeling. Why don't we check out a village nearby and see if this has happened to anyone else? Mau? Amber?"

Amber mirrored Mau, crossing her arms. "OKay, first thing," she began. "Start calling me Kanon. If we're actually trapped in this freaky game, then I'd like my sister to use my real name. You, however," she turned to Mau, "can keep calling me Amber."

"Well, if that's how you feel," Aqua said. "I'm Anon." The smile she gave Mau is almost reassuring. Almost.

"SeeU," Mau said in response. "Yeah, we can go to the village."

_As long as you stop acting so unnervingly calm,_ she added internally.

* * *

Len bit into the warm loaf of bread. Well, he supposed Leon technically did since that was the name on his stat screen, but it was still Len Kagamine who tasted it. Len Kagamine who felt the crumbs between his fingers and felt bread stick between his teeth.

This was the best dream ever.

He waved to an NPC shopkeeper as he walked through the marketplace (he didn't even know you could do that in-game!). The shopkeeper offered a typica smile and redirected himself back to the customers. Probably NPCs too, since Len couldn't see their name anywhere. OKay, so the dream wasn't entirely realistic. It was still great!

He was actually surprised it had lasted so long. After breakfast at the inn he had woken up at, he trekked out to the foothills, where some villagers spotted some sort of "demon wolf." It was only a level ten, easily dealt with, but he got some decent EXP from it. That had been this morning. It was high-noon now.

"And how is a lad like yourself doing on a fine day like today?" a booming voice asked from the doorway of a pub. Len had to say, the cheesy dialogue was pretty on-par with that of the actual game. His brain was amazing.

"Can't complain," he replied. He could hear the words as though he had actually just spoken them, and so could the NPC pub owner.

"Care for a spot of mead?" the man asked. He was a giant of a person, with a thick beard and kind, bright eyes. Honestly, he seemed like a direct rip-off of Hagrid from Harry Potter. Len didn't mind.

"Perhaps tonight," he told the man. "I have many things to accomplish today."

The man laughed a big, booming laugh. "You young ones and your busy schedules," he said. "Why, I can't remember being nearly that ambitious. What times we live in."

Len smiled at the predictable dialogue. Just like the game.

He bid the man farewell and headed to the town's entrance, the weight of his supplies heavy on his back. With legs far stronger than his real ones, he carried himself down the road with an ease he wished he could replicate in real life.

"Dammit, Kanon!"

He stopped at the sound of the voice, looking on down the road to see three girls running in succession. A blonde girl with a long ponytail was at the front of the group, shouting behind her. Len barely made out the phrase she replied with.

"Don't call me Kanon, you heinous b-"

The curse is cut off as the girl in question runs directly into Len's chest. It would have been far more comedic if it didn't hurt so damn much. Was her nose made of stone?

"Shit. Sorry, dude," Kanon said. "Come on, Anon. We need to find someone who isn't a shitty NPC."

From behind the girl, a short-haired blonde who looked like Kanon's mirror image and a tall girl with kitty ears approached. The kitty girl did not look amused.

"Wait up!" she demanded, hands on her hips. From the tattoos at her neck, Len guessed she was a warrior. Probably part of the prince class from the elegance of her blade.

Kanon rolled her eyes, hardly acknowledging Len. His stomach sunk at that. This was feeling less and less like a dream as time went on.

"You're not NPCs?" he asked. The kitty girl looked at him directly, blue eyes digging through him like he had done something wrong.

"Wait, you're not?" she replied in the same confused tone. He shook his head.

A look was exchanged between Kanon and what was most likely her twin.

"Well," the twin said. "It's a start."


End file.
